Around The Classical Internet: July 20, 2012

"Sonochromatic cyborg" and artist Neil Harbisson — with the implanted device that converts color to sound — at his TED talk in Edinburgh last month.

James Duncan Davidson
/ courtesy of TED

Originally published on July 20, 2012 4:58 pm

Remember the interview with "sonochromatic artist cyborg" Neil Harbisson? He was born without the ability to see any colors at all, but his prosthetic eyepiece translates color into sound — and he has started reinterpreting music visually through his new perceptions of color, as in his painting based on Mozart's "Queen of the Night" aria. His TED talk is now up, and he's dressed for the occasion in the "C Major" of hot pink, electric blue and bright yellow.

Read Dan Wakin's very charming and quite honest tale of his time at a pro-am orchestra camp in Baltimore: "Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italian surged faster and faster as I sat on the stage of Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall amid the ranks of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Marin Alsop, the music director, was giving no quarter. The notes were rushing past, more quickly than my fingers could move. The train was leaving, and I wasn't on it."

And remember how a new Vivaldi violin concerto was discovered just last month in Dresden? Now there's a "bombshell in the world of Baroque opera." A version of Vivaldi's opera Orlando Furioso, with as many as 20 (!) previously unknown arias, has been uncovered in Turin.

Jon Lord, the founding keyboard player of the prog rock band Deep Purple, who went on to write a string of classical compositions and record for the British classical label Avie, died Monday at age 71 after suffering from pancreatic cancer.

Get this guy a flight to California immediately! A music critic for the Berliner Zeitung in Germany loved a recent Mahler First performance by the San Francisco Youth Orchestra and conductor Donato Cabrera: "It was as though the endlessly suffering Gustav Mahler had finally found his peace in the California sun, lying on the beach with a perfect tan."

Gearing up to play some Rachmaninov? Get your ibuprofen ready — or maybe try some movement therapy via the Taubman Approach: "Musicians are called 'elite athletes of the small muscles' for good reason. The ice packs, splints and anti-inflammatories associated with the sports world are also a daily routine for many classical musicians."

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